7 Moffat's "Unorthodox" critique - Part II: nineteenth-century British and continental critics

American Journal of Economics and Sociology, The,  Nov, 2003  by George Babilot

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The alternatives as contrived by Moffat would have to be rejected by George both on the basis of appropriateness and on the basis of relevance. If issues must be drawn and choices made, George would surely argue for a more appropriate basis to contrast him with Malthus, such as, for example, which is the more desirable: to accept poverty and misery as the immutable results of natural instinct, or to view poverty and misery as the unnecessary products of society's material advance, controllable by humankind? Moffat cites from Progress and Poverty, "the earth could maintain a thousand billions of people as easily as a thousand millions," as justification for his inference of a population of infinite size. (8) The quotation does reveal George's confusion of the returns of scale and the principle of diminishing returns, and on that score deserves criticism. (9) That granted, the statement as used by Moffat is not along those lines, however, nor is it germane to the alternatives advanced by him, which imply in contrast that George offers a theory that admits to a population so great it is restrained only by the limits of space. It is useful to note that the quotation cited is contained in a passage that has as its main point a discussion of the life-sustaining and cycling properties of matter, which George views as an ongoing, endless process, and from which he concludes that the only technical limit to population is the limit of space. It is this remote possibility of the human race's pressing upon space that, according to George, gives to the Malthusian theory its self-evident character. He denies even this remote possibility to the Malthusian doctrine, however, carefully pointing out that, unlike vegetable and animal life, human beings do not have a tendency to press against the limits of space. George, in clear contradiction to Moffat's inference, offers in place of the positive and prudential checks of Malthus a check on population that cannot be disassociated from rising standards of living, intellectual development, and society's overall advancement:

   If the real law of population is thus indicated, as I think it must
   be, then
   the tendency to increase, instead of being always uniform, is strong
   where
   a greater population would give increased comfort, and where the
   perpetuity
   of the race is threatened by the mortality induced by adverse
   conditions;
   but weakens just as the higher development of the individual
   becomes possible and the perpetuity of the race is assured. In other
   words,
   the law of population accords with and is subordinate to the law of
   intellectual
   development, and any danger that human beings may be brought
   into a world where they cannot be provided for arises not from the
   ordinances
   of nature, but from social maladjustments that in the midst of
   wealth, condemn men to want. (10)

Considering the reasons offered by Moffat for preferring Malthus's theory as an alternative--because it demands "only that in the propagation of our species as in all other things, we shall go about the business, whether of maintaining or increasing population with prudence and moderation" (11)--by the same standard he might as easily have chosen George's position. Moffat instead accuses George of demagoguery. He thinks that George, in rejecting the Malthusian doctrine, is purposely attempting to win popular favor by trying to show that the depressed millions are depressed from some cause beyond their own control, and by charging their misery to landlords and governments, and thereby implying further that, to remove it, no sacrifice or effort will be needed on their part. This is Moffat's reaction to what he regards as George's implacable stand against the notion of prudential restraint.